Since the introduction of smartphones, the quality of picture taken by smartphone cameras has increased dramatically. The increase in image quality has caused more and more users of mobile devices to stop using a dedicated point and shoot digital camera, and instead use the camera built into the smartphone or other mobile device that they are already carrying.
However, because smartphones are multi-purpose devices, they do not have features specific to picture-taking, such as viewfinders. Picture taking on the modern smartphone is done with reference to a screen built into the phone, which is usually LCD, LED, or similar flat screen technology. These types of screens can suffer degraded performance in bright light situations, especially natural sunlight, making smartphone picture taking outdoors problematic. Some such screens also cannot be seen by certain types of sunglasses with polarized lenses when held in a certain orientation, which makes picture taking in bright sunlight more difficult.
Accordingly, it would be a useful addition to a smartphone to have a viewfinder that could, at minimal cost, provide an alternative to the screen for photography framing when the screen is not viewable. It would also be useful to have an ability to shield the screen from the natural light that is impeding its being seen, or impede its contrast, without also shielding the lens during the act of taking the photograph.